When Nelson "Madiba" Mandela (Morgan Freeman) became President of South
Africa, part of his mission was to cultivate a collective consciousness
among the populace in the wake of Apartheid. This proved to be no mean feat,
for the nation had just finished a bloody civil war which left blacks and
whites very suspicious of each other.

Although Mandela himself had endured extreme hardships at the hands of the
Apartheid regime, including 27 years of brutal incarceration as a political
prisoner, he was determined to govern impartially, seeking to balance black
aspirations against white fears. Then, in 1995, with the country set to host
the Rugby World Cup Championship, he seized on the idea of using the event
to unite the people by encouraging everyone to rally around the Springboks,
the South Africa national team. So, ignoring the skepticism of his closest
advisors, Mandela announced that, "Reconciliation starts here!"

This is the point of departure of Invictus, a combination sports saga and
historical drama directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie takes its title from
William Ernest Henley's classic poem of the same name containing the
immortal lines: "In the fell clutch of circumstance… I am the master of my
fate; I am the captain of my soul." The film co-stars Morgan Freeman who
earned another Oscar nomination for his uncanny impersonation of Mandela
opposite Matt Damon who landed one of his own for perfecting an Afrikaner
accent in portraying Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks.

A critical component of Mandela's plan involved inspiring Pienaar and his
teammates to embrace the motto "One team, one country!" Still, a slogan
alone would not be enough, which meant Mandela also needed the Springboks to
rise to the occasion and prevail in the tournament, if his novel notion were
to take hold and sweep across the land. This is why he brought them on an
outing to the infamous Robben Island, sharing those memorable lines from
Invictus which had sustained him during his incarceration in a dank prison
cell there.

The movie works better when recounting such poignant, personal interludes
which reveal Mandela's complicated psyche than during the scenes recreating
rugby matches staged in Ellis Park Stadium. Unfortunately, Invictus focuses
far more on the latter than the former, thereby subtly attributing South
Africa's critical turn towards racial reconciliation to a fairly-formulaic,
sports triumph than to the sage insights of a visionary leader who saw
forgiveness as the only path to a lasting peace.